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Friday, September 8, 2016

I'm back from Dragon Con with a handful of new preview images from November's Deadly Foes set of Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures! And thanks to one friendly Dragon Con panel attendee, I've decided to add a FOURTH figure to this evening's preview, in part to make up for the last couple of weeks with no updates and in part to show her that dreams really do come true, sometimes much more rapidly than you can imagine!

Let's start things off today with this imposing Dwarf Slaver, as nasty a ginger as your player characters will ever encounter. With art based on the Chelish villain Kossrani from Pathfinder Adventure Path #97: In Hell's Bright Shadow, this guy has enough personality to be a hero OR a villain. He's also a good illustration of how things can go wrong during the sculpting and approval process, and how good WizKids is at fixing our mistakes! Take a close look at Kossrani's shield, with the awesome carved-in symbol of Asmodeus. Well, it would have been awesome if it hadn't been sculpted in reverse. You see, sometimes when we're laying out books, we flip an image on its Y axis to make for a more interesting page layout. This usually works with no problems, but occasionally, as in the case of Pathfinder #97, something like a holy symbol gets reversed and causes a bit of a problem. In this case, I didn't notice until the paint master came into the Paizo offices and I was holding it in my hand. Happily, WizKids was able to fill in the mold for the cut-out part of the shield, and will instead be producing the (correct) Asmodeus symbol using a tampo stamp. All praise be to the Lord of the Nine Hells! Miracles really do happen, you guys! The Dwarf Slaver is a Medium figure slated at the uncommon rarity.

Up next is the Torrent Hellknight, based on the Wayne Reynolds character design for the Hell's Rebels character Lictor Octavio Sabinus from the cover of Pathfinder Adventure Path #98. This is our third or fourth Hellknight in Pathfinder Battles so far (I've lost count!), and he's definitely one of my favorites. I think I've found that, as cool as all-black armor looks on the printed page, it sometimes results in fairly underwhelming prepainted figures, at least color-wise. Thankfully, the blue cape and silver scale armor in Wayne's design gives us some interesting colors to pop with this guy, and I think he'll be a popular choice for player characters and NPCs alike. Heck, get a couple of them and they serve as pretty killer elite guards for any of the various Chelaxian (or even just generally evil) NPCs we've released to date. The Torrent Hellknight is a Medium, uncommon figure.

Speaking of despicable Chelaxian villains, here we have Jilia Bainilus, the former mayor of the city of Kintargo and a very interesting character in the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path. Calling Jilia a villain is a bit of a stretch (as well as a bit of a spoiler), so in the interests of not ruining anything let's just say her Facebook alignment status is "It's Complicated." Jilia's look comes direct from the brush of Pathfinder superstar artist Wayne Reynolds and the cover of Pathfinder Adventure Path #99. I think she's got a fantastic look for a player character noble swordswoman. Although Jilia's official game statistics are... let's just say, "somewhat different," to me this is pretty much the perfect swashbuckler miniature, and I can't wait to use it in my games. Jilia Bainilus is a Medium, rare figure.

After one of my fun Dragon Con panels this last weekend, a dedicated Pathfinder fan came up to ask me if we might ever do a Pathfinder Battles figure of a Strix, the dark-skinned primitive winged folk who feature so heavily in the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path, Liane Merciel's wonderful Nightglass novel, and elsewhere. I was pleased to not only say "yes, we will!" but to say "yes, we will, as soon as humanly possible. In fact, we've got one in the very next set!" So here you go, Pathfinder fan. Your very own Strix Sorcerer, suitable for use as a player character or a nasty winged villain. Huzzah! The Strix Sorcerer is a Medium, uncommon figure.

Next week, I'll be back with more awesome previews for Deadly Foes. A formal announcement of the next set should hit soon. In the meantime, I'm currently working on the NEXT setlist with our recently returned Director of Licensing, Mike Kenway. We're starting with a blank slate and a VERY loose theme for this one, so please let me know if you have any requests! I'm particularly interested to hear what major races or groups you'd like to see us cover with multiple "like" figures in the same set. By my count we've done goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, ghouls, and a few others.

Sadly they're huge, like many of the coolest lovecaftian nasties, but is there anything wrong with getting a truly creepy huge spider as part of an incentive? Really?

IF you looking for love craft inspired why not a dimensional shambler? Especially if it's based on this art from carrion crown, wake of the watcher
shambler goodness
Of course if we could see its mouth open, oversized and full of teeth, even better.

Unfortunately, the dimensional shambler isn't Paizo IP or Open Content... it belongs to Chaosium, the company behind the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Chaosium has allowed Paizo to use a lot of content for Strange Aeons, and they seem to have a decent relationship, but bringing Wizkids into the arrangement might be too much for Chaosium's taste. ^_^

Unfortunately, the dimensional shambler isn't Paizo IP or Open Content... it belongs to Chaosium, the company behind the Call of Cthulhu RPG. Chaosium has allowed Paizo to use a lot of content for Strange Aeons, and they seem to have a decent relationship, but bringing Wizkids into the arrangement might be too much for Chaosium's taste. ^_^

Is that so?

The Dimensional Shambler first appeared in HPLs "The Horror at the Museum".
Clark Ashton Smith only developed the creatures further, he didn't invent them.

1) The Horror at the Museum was a collaboration with Hazel Heald, whose estate may still possess some or all of the IP rights.

2) Some or all of the details of its appearance may have been created by Chaosium.

Mr. Jacobs could probably give you more specifics - he's far better versed in these matters than I. ^_^

Paizo doesn't have enough leeway to reprint its stats and/or art in a hardcover Bestiary, so I suspect they would be leery about creating a miniature based on it. Even if they legally can do so, they propably won't, in the name of friendly relations with a company who's been nice enough to extend them the use of their IP.

I intentionally didn't list red mantis because we are going to get them in this set! Right Erik? please say yes, please...

No Red Mantis in Deadly Foes.

Worst thing I've read all day. Please bust them out soon, both sexes and a rare of Chivane.

And a Grippli, I can't even find a Grippli in metal.

Take a look at this page for a Grippli Archer in metal, and that same company, Stonehaven Miniatures, has at least half a dozen other grippli minis on their site.

I was just going to point them out when I saw that you had already done it. They also have a great variety of halforcs (I'll be using the Half orc noble as my alchemist) They also have a couple of good tengu as well.

Someone else said something about Wayangs and I second that, though I would also like to see at least one Wayang in metal. Grippli and Kitsune I can find if needed but Wayangs require some work at this time. :( Same for Nagaji. Perhaps some catfolk who are not archers. Most of the metal ones I find are archers. when they are melee they are usually a bit too big because then they are lion or sabertooth folk instead.

First and foremost, i think the knockout piece of this preview is the gender ambiguity of the Strix. I'm not sure how producing more androgynous sculpts might shake out, or how many of the more unusual PC races could pull off such versatility, but I'd love to see more.

Allow me to second the following, lest they be forgotten because "they've already had enough votes":

For anyone who's interested in Stonehaven's tengu, kitsune, or grippli minis, or indeed any of their minis, they just announced a 20% coupon for their website while running their new Kickstarter which just went live (centering on minis for giants). The coupon to use at checkout is "GIANTKICK".

I agree that it is time for another Otyugh, the Giants of Legend mini (which is quite nice) is stupid expensive now. Even the Night Below Lifeleech Otyugh (which I found lacking) goes for a pretty penny.

The pathfinder artwork for the Otyugh is solid in form, if a little bland in color. And I'm sure that Wizkds could do something to enhance its appearance a bit (or perhaps there's better artwork to base the mini off of).

Pathfinder also has many variants of Otyughs, although I'm not so sure that they look much different from the original except for the Mutant Otyugh with its additional appendage. Still, an Otyugh vomiting out rotten flesh or covered iin ooze would be an exciting addition to my collection.

That's a fair comment. Both are kind of ridiculously expensive and it would be nice to have an alternative. Sadly at huge size it would need to be an incentive unless wizkids and Paizo can come to some sort of arrangement like their rival appears to have done.

Storm King's Thunder has 6 huges (no doubles) per brick (8 boosters).
There are 10 different huge minis but 4 also have an additional alternate version with a different weapon.
Also almost every small or medium mini (unique named characters excluded) has 2 versions using the same sculpt but a different weapon & paint job.

I think this is a great way to distinguish the D&D line from the Pathfinder Battles line even further.
Pathfinder has a far superior paintjob with more details.
Now there are even more different sculpts in a PFB set than in a D&D one.
Also there are the Dressing pieces in PFB whereas D&D has the invisibles.

So PFB offers more creatures, better looks and is cheaper with $15.99.

Card game characters, especially the non-iconics. I'd love to have miniatures for all of them. And it seems to me that the 3 in Rusty Dragon Inn sold out pretty fast.

As i don't play the card game, could you list the 3 creatures ( Ranzak the pirate goblin probably is one) and also some others that would translate well into PPM?

Thanks. :-)

I don't collect minis, other than for the card game, so I'm not sure I'd be the best to tell you which would be the best "crossover" appeal. Elinandra does, so she might be able to speak more towards that.

If it had enough heads, say seven, then I would be fine with it as the only figure for a case incentive. The utility of such a piece would more than make up for its size.

If the heads attached to stumps of the body: so a body with head stumps, and heads on long necks, then you could use it to simulate heads cut off as well. In addition heads could be made up of single heads or two per stump so you could mix and match. A five stump hydra could then have anywhere from 5-10 heads! I think that would be an awesome incentive. Make the body a generic colour and you could even add transparent plastic effects to additional heads to create pyro- and cryo- hydras. An incentive with one don't and many sets of interchangeable head! Could even open the possibility for heads that are not traditional hydra style, evil faces, devil heads, large eyeballs etc